May 22, 2014 | News

How many children do you want to have?

MPIDR researcher Anne-Kristin Kuhnt has successfully defended her doctoral thesis. Her dissertation addresses, inter alia, the question of what factors inhibit the realization of fertility intentions.

The PhD work of Anne-Kristin Kuhnt addresses primarily two research questions: Does the desire to have children remain stable over time? And to what extent are fertility intentions realized? The answers to these questions are scientifically relevant - but also politically, as the difference between desired and achieved fertility serves to legitimize specific family policies.

Anne-Kristin Kuhnt used data from the so-called German Family Panel (pairfam), a large-scale longitudinal study as part of which over 12,000 persons of specific cohorts, their partners, parents, and their children have been interviewed throughout Germany. The study is considered unique in the world and allows researchers to conduct detailed analyses of demographic issues such as partnership relations, generational relations, and fertility at different phases of life.

The survey includes questions on so-called fertility concepts, such as the number of children respondents ideally want and realistically expect to have. That is, whether,  and, if so, how many children women and men would like to have. The respondents are also asked whether they aim to have a(nother) child within the next two years. Besides anchor persons, data on the three concepts is collected from current partners, such as the spouse or unmarried partners (who may possibly not be part of the same household).

The work of Anne-Kristin Kuhnt shows that both the family size realistically expected and considered ideal show relatively little stability, slightly more so for men than for women. But the results also show that the answers on the fertility concepts stabilized as the respondents grew older. The partner plays a decisive role in the stability of fertility intentions. Changes in partnership status, i.e. separation or  having a new partner, more often resulted in a reduction resp. an increase in the number of children respondents realistically expect to have.

One of the conclusions drawn in the dissertation is that less than 50 percent of all respondents who said that they wanted to have children implemented their desire within the space of two years. The most notable differences were seen when it came to the current parental status. Those who already were parents followed up their plan to have a child more often so than the childless to date. But the intention to have a child is no guarantee to have that child. The so-called negative intention is a much more reliable measure in forecasting achieved fertility: More than 90 percent of the respondents who said that they do not intend to have a child acted accordingly and did not change their intention during the observation period.

The question of why people do not realize their fertility intention is of relevance to family policy. And Anne-Kristin Kuhnt knows the answer. For one thing, there is the lack of a partner. And for another, there is the job situation: Men who are in full-time employment tend to realize their fertility intention more often so than the unemployed or marginally employed - an aspect of  socio-political relevance according to Anne-Kristin Kuhnt. "Of course, the state can and should not intervene in the private sphere," the researcher says. "But that the employment status plays a decisive role whether or not people implement their desire to have a child could be of socio-political relevance."

Anne-Kristin Kuhnt is a researcher in the MPIDR research group Life Course, Social Policy, and the Family. On 22th of May, 2014 she has successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Kinderwünsche im Lebensverlauf – Analysen auf Basis des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels (pairfam) at the University of Rostock.